Priceless
There is an article that is useful and necessary in rural Spain. At least in Galicia. It's used for everything, from carrying water to holding wet clothes, to holding corn to carrying grapes and firewood. It is the universal black bucket. There is no household without at least one (or two, or ten).
The black bucket is a container made of black rubber with two handles. It's flexible and bigger than a normal bucket. Here we call it a capacho or a capazo. There is really no accurate translation of this word. Bucket doesn't do it complete justice, because it's bigger, has two handles, and is quite flexible. Depending on what you carry in it, you can carry it with both hands, or you can pull together the handles and carry it in one hand.
It's one of those things without which life in a village encounters problems. There's only so much you can carry in your arms or in a small pail. Wooden boxes can be an option, but they're difficult to find. I suppose that baskets were used in a past before plastics kicked in. There are still basket weavers, and there are some houses that still have vimbieiras or osier willows, plants with flexible boughs used to make baskets. We have them because my father knows how to weave traditional baskets that have low sides. He taught my husband and tried to teach our daughter, but the buck stopped there. Baskets can be used for a number of things, but the black buckets beat them in that they can carry liquids. Don't try that with a basket. So far, I have seen transported in a black bucket: water, firewood, meat, dirty clothes, wet clothes, ashes, young chickens (live), grapes, corn, grape juice, bottles, corn cobs, hulled cobs, grass, weeds, mussels, fish, scallops, sand, apples, oranges, toys, pine cones, and I suppose many more things that don't come to mind at the moment.
Here's to the black bucket. What would life be like in rural Galicia without it?
The black bucket is a container made of black rubber with two handles. It's flexible and bigger than a normal bucket. Here we call it a capacho or a capazo. There is really no accurate translation of this word. Bucket doesn't do it complete justice, because it's bigger, has two handles, and is quite flexible. Depending on what you carry in it, you can carry it with both hands, or you can pull together the handles and carry it in one hand.
It's one of those things without which life in a village encounters problems. There's only so much you can carry in your arms or in a small pail. Wooden boxes can be an option, but they're difficult to find. I suppose that baskets were used in a past before plastics kicked in. There are still basket weavers, and there are some houses that still have vimbieiras or osier willows, plants with flexible boughs used to make baskets. We have them because my father knows how to weave traditional baskets that have low sides. He taught my husband and tried to teach our daughter, but the buck stopped there. Baskets can be used for a number of things, but the black buckets beat them in that they can carry liquids. Don't try that with a basket. So far, I have seen transported in a black bucket: water, firewood, meat, dirty clothes, wet clothes, ashes, young chickens (live), grapes, corn, grape juice, bottles, corn cobs, hulled cobs, grass, weeds, mussels, fish, scallops, sand, apples, oranges, toys, pine cones, and I suppose many more things that don't come to mind at the moment.
Here's to the black bucket. What would life be like in rural Galicia without it?
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